Page 166 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
Hescreamed.Blood belched from the rune and trickled down his cheek, painting swirling crimson patterns into the sea.
“STOP!!!”
I didn’t recognize my voice when it finally burst out of me. Wasn’t even sure if that animalistic wail was mine, until people on board the ships scurried, leaning over the railings, watching me as I wrenched free of the ship’s suction and made a panicked dash to Alistair’s side.
Several screamed.
“Shit! Rune!” Kian’s voice boomed. “Back off. She’s in the water!”
“Pippi?” Jackson’s anger exploded over me, making my gut twist.
I ignored them both.
All I could see at that moment was Alistair. The sad, heartbreaking state of him, floating lopsided and mewling as blood bubbled from his ruined eye.
His head was pinned low enough, with his chin just above the water, that I could reach up and touch him.
He hissed.
“It’s me, Alistair,” I soothed. “It’s me.”
“Pippi.” A broken sigh escaped him.
Voices twined over my head as people from both ships shouted speculation at each other.
“Where the fuck did she come from?”
“Did he have her with him the whole time?”
“Did she jump off the ship? She’s got a life jacket.”
“I swear I didn’t see her.”
Alistair leaned into me, shivering. Blood still bubbled from the gummy hunk of flesh where his beautiful orange eye had been only seconds before.
“Pippi, get away from it!”
Jackson.
I bristled at the sound of his voice.
“I haven’t finished the rune,” called the man who was as awful as the malicious magic he was named after.Rune.“I have to do the other eye. But she needs to get out of there. The spell can only do so much to hold him.”
I plastered my body to Alistair’s head.
“Pippi?” Alistair murmured.
I stroked his scales.
“I…I have a question.”
“Okay…”
“It may mean the d-d-difference between life and death,” he continued.
My stomach dropped.
“Does this rune…” He flinched as his mangled socket convulsed. “...make me more or less a-a-attractive?”
